Writing and Art
Just returned from a Writers' Retreat at Moniack Mhor, Scotland's Creative Writing Centre near Inverness, organised by the Society of Authors, Scotland. My first writers' retreat and my first visit to Scotland. Fifteen writers in a variety of genres got together to work in peace and tranquillity in idyllic surroundings and talk about literature, a thing almost unheard of in my long experience. Writers usually talk about money.
En route to the north I stopped off in Glasgow to visit Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery and the Hunterian, which is part of Glasgow University. My main interest was in the 'Glasgow Boys' who are not well-represented in the London Galleries. At Kelvingrove there is a whole gallery devoted to their work, which covers every genre of the early 20th century. Well worth a visit. The Hunterian has a collection of works/relics of James McNeill Whistler. He used extremely long brushes, nearly a yard long. I have never seen such long brushes. He was a tall man and worked on large canvasses so perhaps he could reach the top without a ladder. I am a mere 5ft tall so perhaps I could do with some.
Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery
Back home I started work on my first Scottish landscape.
Archaeology and History
I missed the outing of the Archaeology Society due to a bad back but I did acquire a wonderful book from Postcript www.psbooks.co.ukto assist with my research into a work in progress, a collection of short stories, which has an Egyptian background. The book is 'The Art of the Pharaohs' introduced by Egyptologist Zahi Hawass with text by Giorgio Ferrero and photographs by Araldo De Luca, published by The American University in Cairo Press. It's a very large book so the full-page photos provide marvellous detail. Kelvingrove, by the way, has some wonderful late Roman/Egyptian portraits from mummy cases, amazing not only because they have survived, but for their remarkable realism.
Further to my researches into the early Celtic Church (see my book Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint (Imprint Academic) #AmazonCart) Lucy Byatt, one of the writers on the retreat, told me that where she lives in Galloway there is a cave where St Columba of Iona is said to have landed when he left Ireland to go into exile. Susan Price, another of the writers, who comes from the Black Country near Dudley, told me about St Kunelm, who is still revered in that area. This is why I can't get on with the next part of the book (first part is A History of Post-Roman Britain 400 - 600 AD:The High Kings (Amazon)). As soon as I am ready to get started someone tells me something else I need to check out.
Stage and Screen
I recently went to the Millennium Theatre in Cardiff to see 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - well done with some ingenious production techniques - but mainly I was taken with the theatre itself, beautifully designed to combine a traditional proscenium arch design with boxes/balconies on three sides of the auditorium but crafted and finished in natural wood giving it a very modern feel. It's time Cardiff had a big theatre suitable for a capital city. The Sherman was always on the small side. I am impressed.
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